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I tend to agree with the decision to restrict the sales on base. This is an ongoing conflict and there are soldiers that have to go into it on a daily bases. If the military believes that the sale of the game may cause division amongst the troops or dishonors the fallen then I believe it's well within their rights to ban the sale on their property.

Listen I understand both sides of the argument but I feel like all of this can be solved with a very simple idea that the Army itself used in the America's Army game by making both sides of a match playing as U.S. soldiers. Why even risk offending anyone by letting people play as Taliban forces.

The U.S. Military has the right to do this. (When you join any U.S. Branch you give up some of your rights) they banned this game for alot of reasons. One being a combat game closely based off of real world operations that were/are current. But this doesn't mean they can't own a copy of the game. From what I have heard. Gamestop will not be selling this game on U.S. Bases and will NOT be shipping the game to APO's and other over sea U.S. Military mail.But I'm really sure you would be able to get the game on eBay or other sites on the web. But like I said, U.S. Military owns you if your in there. And you lost some of your rights doing so.

The U.S. Military has the right to do this. (When you join any U.S. Branch you give up some of your rights) they banned this game for alot of reasons. One being a combat game closely based off of real world operations that were/are current. But this doesn't mean they can't own a copy of the game. From what I have heard. Gamestop will not be selling this game on U.S. Bases and will NOT be shipping the game to APO's and other over sea U.S. Military mail.But I'm really sure you would be able to get the game on eBay or other sites on the web. But like I said, U.S. Military owns you if your in there. And you lost some of your rights doing so.

If the Army's going to go with that argument, the DoD might as well cancel all combat training exercises featuring an opposing force (played by military personnel). Don't these Generals see the similarity between such training and this kind of game? Just because you might be playing as the OpForce doesn't mean you support the ideology of such groups. In these games, it's just a skin on a video game avatar.

How does that saying go again... oh yeah: If you don't like it, don't buy it!. It's not fair to the deployed soldiers to be denied access to this game just because someone above them doesn't like it. Maybe a compromise could be reached where the game can be kept out of eyesight and if someone wanted to buy it, a copy could be taken out of the stock room. By doing this, they are only weakening the First Amendment of the U. S. Constitution, the right of free speech, and don't all soldiers take an oath to defend the Constitution?

On a side note, I never knew about the losses suffered by your family Mr. Sessler. That was a dark time for the whole world. It's not much but I will say a special prayer for you and yours tonight.

I think many of you are misunderstanding the basic facts of what the military is doing here. The U.S. military reserves all rights to prohibit the dissemination of media that they deem to be threatening, offensive, distracting, etc. through contracted businesses located on U.S. military bases. That is not censorship, because the right to that media through the contracted businesses was never held by the troops serving on those bases. Note that there is no attempted prohibition on acquiring the game otherwise, or playing it if you get it. Rather, it will simply not be sold on U.S. military bases. It's that simple. It may seem arbitrary to the casual observer, but regardless, it's up to the U.S. military, not the soldiers.

i feel for that Mother who lost her son. As a soldier in the United States Army, i can see why people could get upset. this has been a tough subject for anyone to touch on. just look at what happened to "Six Days in Fallujah".

to stop this game, though, just because people will get to play as an enemy combatant that has the same name(organization not personal) we are currently fighting, doesn't make much since. there was never any uproar over the original Medal of Honors/Call of Duties, but one could always play as a Nazi/Japanese soldier, that was always used in a negative context(yes i know there is nothing "good" about Nazis). people did what the Sess did... they just didn't buy the game.

by coming out like this, and saying that it is negative towards soldiers in this conflict, is more detrimental than having just let it be. for all we know, if the aforementioned son, were he still alive, would be buying this game. now we have people, with little-to-no experience on what the hell they are talking about, coming out, trying to bash this game and protect the soldiers.

trust me when i say we are big boys and girls and can handle our own when it comes to how we "feel" about things.

eloquent as always mr. sessler, i enjoy hearing anything you have to say because of how calmly and precisely you pose your points. as for me i think the army did the wrong thing for the right the reasons. they are more concerned about the mental fragility of their soldiers now then at any point in our military's history. so much so that the men and women serving in active combat have mandatory psychiatric evaluations to ensure they are ok. men who come back from active tours in afghanistan have the highest suicide percentage then any other profession in america. so i do get why the idea of allowing their soldiers to play a game that may hurt their resolve in combat frankly frightens the army. the multiplayer aside i think the single player element is the main source of the problem here.my believe is that EA and the Medal of Honor team wanted to present the taliban as humans, instead of the monsters the american ethos has depicted them as and will present them in a way that reflects this. the main draw to video games is their ability to draw you in and give you both an experience and an emotional response to that experience. if you doubt me recall the first time you reached andrew ryan in bioshock. so there may be a legit point to be brought up that our soldiers would have a harder time killing an opponent after say playing a game where that same opponent had his wife, child and village bombed out by the soldiers comrades causing an otherwise peaceful man to be the enemy. again i dunno what is and isn't going on in the single player. and i certainly don't agree with an outright ban of any form of art regardless of what that means. as i right this i remember progressive artist who went to a field where in the jim crowe era multiple black men were lynched. he then ties nooses to all the trees in the field and lays tombstones in the center that spells the word "remember". i personally have had nooses tied to my locker as a student and i can tell you its a terrifying experience. but i would never want anyone to dismiss the art the man was trying to create because of how i felt.

to summarize, i believe its important that all issues regardless of how they might be to you be viewed from all possible sides before a final solution is ultimately decided. we live in a wonderful country were all cultures come to boil once in a while and it takes a level head to relax the tension so we can all understand one another.

once again i say thank you mr. sessler and hope that you can continue to inform, inspire and invoke the masses

All the controversy is just going to drive game sales and it's not like the soldiers who want the game won't just go off-base to purchase it. I guess the lesson here is that there can be movies about ongoing conflicts but not video games.